Writer Quotes · Page 609

“Reader beware, reader bewildered…Read no further or reader be hindered.”

— Michael Devaney

“Good books and good friends were critical in Lewis’s conversion.”

— Devin Brown

“I have, as may be apparent, not much respect for editors as a class.”

— Piers Anthony

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

— Alice Mattison

Brubaker and Phillipss books have always been about eight years ahead of their time.

— Brian K. Vaughan

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.”

— Hemingway, Ernest

O foolish writer. Now moves. Even in storytime, dreamtime, once-upon-a-time, now isn't then.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

“Writing is like riding a bicycle: you don’t forget how, even if you go for years without doing it.”

— Isabel Allende

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.

— Mark Haddon

A book ... unlike a television program, moving picture or any other 'modern means of communication' ... can wait for years, yet…

— Joseph Wood Krutch

A writer who has published as many books as I have has developed, of necessity, a hide like a rhino's, while inside…

— Joyce Carol Oates

I tend to write a pretty half and half split of, like, slow, morose things and then sort of more upbeat stuff.

— James Mercer

Mostly I've just been stealing little moments for myself in order to write - in the bathroom at a hotel, or just…

— Adrianne Lenker

“It’s a shame they do that,” he says, thumbing through the pages. “Requirement ruins even the best of books.”

— Victoria Schwab

But there's no one here. There's just books. I mean it's not the books, is it? I mean it can't be the…

— Donna Noble

I was full time on 'Party of Five' for one year, then more like a creative consultant for two years, where I…

— Susannah Grant

If I write a paragraph and I don't get a certain lift from it, if I don't feel connected to it emotionally,…

— Oscar Hijuelos

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why…

— Stephen King

"The Diagnosis" is by far my most ambitious book. I such great hopes for it... there was so much I wanted to…

— Alan Lightman

My principal failing as a writer is the lack of spontaneity; the nuisance of parallel thoughts, second thoughts, third thoughts; inability to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Prior to 1980, people used to dictate to a secretary for preparing written documents and that person would then punch keys on…

— Shiva Ayyadurai

“What was the point of all this? Flying all over Norway to read for ten minutes to four people? Talking smugly about…

— Karl Ove Knausgård

Read for fun, read for information, read in order to understand yourself and other people with quite different ideas. Learn about the…

— Katherine Paterson

Aberjhani's writing blows the mind and frees the psyche of any rigid assumptions about ancestral heritage. Here, our collective experience is starkly…

— Rosy Cole

It's an odd situation: I could not write about someone for whom I felt no affection or admiration.

— Claire Tomalin

“To write requires passionate love of someone or something - even if it is merely self.”

— Cathryn Louis

All people, even secular people, are seeing books on the market like The End of History.

— Tim LaHaye

“It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life. Read more at”

— Amy Tan

I journal at the end of every day and just keep track of how things are going.

— Betsy Hodges

Don’t look back until you’ve written an entire draft...

— Will Self

But I want to tell my stories, more than that, I have to in order to stay sane.

— Lena Dunham

Words and a book and a belief that the world is words...

— David Foster Wallace

“Like all good works of fiction, it lies like the truth.”

— Robert Crossley

I'm a reluctant writer of non-fiction, in part because I don't really feel qualified.

— William Gibson

As a ghost writer, many words I have written have been for someone else.

— Melissa Leong

A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.

— Germaine Greer

According to [Maxine Hong] Kingston, the prose writer is "a workhorse."

— Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“That's the worst aspect of being a writer: managing plausibility.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

The book is a unit and is such a brilliant ergonomic unit.

— David Gelernter

I, alone, could never have produced this book. I say this mainly in case there are lawsuits.

— Dave Barry